• Asana – An online collaborative project management tool, sort of like Basecamp, but free if you have less than 30 team members. This one was recommended by Catherine Reach Sanders (who just moved from the ABA Technology Resource Center to the Chicago Bar Association).
• Pathagoras – a document assembly tool that works with Word for Windows. It’s free to try for 90 days, and from what Jim Calloway described, it’s a powerful tool for transactional lawyers who create variations of form documents and need a tool that makes it easy to do this.
• How to create a Digital ID for using with Adobe Acrobat, which Nerino Petro says is a surefire way to have true digital signatures that actually get accepted by the recipient. I’m going to start using this for sure.
• Let Me Google That For You – I forgot about this one, but it’s a classic. If you’re adept at using Google but find that you get annoyed when people ask you for information that they could just as easily have googled themselves, you need to check it out. I won’t ruin it for you; just go do a sample search and you’ll see what this tool does.

If you want to see all the tips that we did, here’s the link to our presentation.

I want to do more to help mentor young lawyers.

Law school education has for a long time failed to provide truly practical information to budding lawyers. This is especially true when it comes to information about how to use technology to do a better job in the practice of law. So folks graduate from law school devoid of any sense of how to use technology.

New lawyers are also devoid of money after they pay all their law school bills.

So, here’s how DigitalWorkflowCLE plans to help. First, we’re going to focus some of our attention on helping new lawyers learn practical skills. And we’re going to do it for free. Our first CLE program of the year will be a one hour webinar on Social Networking for Lawyers, and it will only be offered to Louisiana lawyers who’ve been in practice for three years or less.

The February 3rd webinar is limited to 15 new lawyers. Again, it’s completely free and we provide 1 hour of CLE credit (includes Ethics credit). For other lawyers we’ll be doing the Social Networking seminar a week later, on February 10, but we’ll be charging $30 for the CLE credit (Ethics).

Dane and I have both been practicing law for over 20 years, and we’ve been trying to use technology to do a better job for our clients. We found out a lot of lessons the hard way, but sometimes we found some tools that worked reliably and weren’t hard to learn. We figured other lawyers would want to know some of the things we learned, and so we started doing CLE programs focused on technology in law practice.

Our CLE programs are technology focused, but they’re also practical, informative, and entertaining. Our goal is to make it easier for you to find the useful, reliable technology. We also show you how to incorporate it into your practice, so you can concentrate on being a great lawyer. If you work with digital data (e.g. have a computer, use email, use a smartphone) then you have a “digital workflow.” Why not figure out how to make that digital stuff flow more smoothly, and get CLE credit to boot?

That’s what we do, and that’s why we named the company “DigitalWorkflowCLE.”

Wednesday (Dec 28th) 
Digital Case Management

Acrobat & PDF Tips

Email Efficiency & Practice

E-Discovery panel (no slides)

Social Networking for Lawyers

Efficiency in Info Gathering

Digital Office & Consultants – (no slides)

Thursday (Dec 29th) 
Articulate Advocacy 

Little Big Firm – Tips for small firm lawyers

Digital Note-taking

Cloud Computing

Mobile Lawyering – Smartphones and iPads

60 Tips in 60 Minutes

09:00–10:00 am –  Creating a paperless law practice

Creating a paperless practice involves picking the right scanner, and  then setting it up for the common, everyday scan jobs. Setting up a reliable file-naming, and storage system is critical, preferably one that allows file access via the Internet. There’s only one “right” scanner, and we’ll tell you what it is.

10:00–11:00 am – Maintaining a paperless practice

Maintaining a paperless practice is about dealing with digital documents. Mostly, it’s about getting proficient at using PDFs, and making notes and highlighting key information. Transitioning away from fax machines and printers is also important. So is creating a digital signature. We’ll show you how.

11:00–12 noon – Workflow & logistical issues

Some workflow issues are different for each firm, and it’s important to tweak those to suit your firm’s particular needs. There is no technology issue that can’t be overcome by someone with sufficient knowledge, but often the stumbling blocks are human nature and psychological. Come with questions; we’ve got answers.

Seating is limited because we prefer a more intimate setting, as opposed to a large hotel venue. We do our seminars in the large conference room on the first floor of the IP Building at 643 Magazine St. (behind the US Fifth Circuit). The room will hold about 50 people, which is perfect for us.

Dane Ciolino and I will be doing most of the sessions, but we’ll be having some excellent outside speakers as well. Jeff Richardson of iPhoneJD fame will be doing a session on mobile lawyering that will cover the use of tablet devices such as iPads. And Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan from the Eastern District of Louisiana will participate in a panel discussion of common e-discovery issues.

We’ll be doing an email blast in a few days, which should get a lot of attention from folks that may not have typically been to our seminars. So, if the readers of this blog want to reserve a spot they should sign up soon. For more details, and to sign up, click here. If you were there last year you’ll remember we had a lot of fun with giveaways, and this year we plan to ramp up the giveaways. We’re also planning lots of other things to make the experience as enjoyable as possible.

The CLE video covers the following topics:

1. working with Portable Document Format files (PDFs), including viewing PDFs, creating PDF files, bookmarking, commenting, using the Typewriter tool, Bates stamping, redaction, and using digital signatures;
2. using Lexis/Nexis CaseMap to organize facts and documents, and using various CaseMap features (including displaying fields, filtering records and working with linked files); and,
3. using mindmapping and MindManager to organize facts for arguments, depositions and witness examinations.

Preview Video

Interested?

For more information or to register for this CLE, click here: Paperless 102: Working with PDFs, CaseMap and Mindmanager.

For all of our preapproved on-line CLE programs, click here: DigitalWorkflowCLE On-Line CLE.

Paperless 101: Ethics and Post-Paper Lawyering is a one-hour, audiovisual, self-study CLE course that discusses the practical and ethical reasons why a lawyer should begin to manage documents digitally rather than with paper files, folders and cabinets. It also introduces the basic principles of digital document management, and digital information management.

Under Louisiana MCLE rules, a Louisiana lawyer may obtained up to 4 hours each year of on-line CLE Credit. This course has been preapproved for one (1) hour of Louisiana MCLE credit (including ethics) effective December 14, 2009.

Preview Video

Interested?

For more information or to register for the course, click here: Paperless 101: Ethics and Post-Paper Lawyering.

As promised during the December 2009 live seminar, here are some links to service providers and materials mentioned during the course:

Materials

For the materials distributed prior to the seminar (in PDF format), click here: CLE Materials.

People

Website Designer: To contact Andrew Larimer regarding WordPress website design and development, click here.

Practice-Management Software Consultant: To contact Craig Bayer regarding practice management systems and software, click here: Law Office Technology Blog.

iPhone Legal Applications: To contact Jeff Richardson regarding the use of iPhones in practice, click here: iPhoneJD Website.

Tech-Saavy Paralegal: For help with scanning and organizing documents, and creating CaseMap databases of facts, documents and people, email Kim Plonsky by clicking here.

Technology Consultant: For hands-on help transitioning your law office to paperless practice, email Becky Diamante (a/k/a TechyBecky by clicking here.

Dane Ciolino’s Louisiana Legal Ethics Site: www.lalegalethics.org.

Ernie Svenson’s Blog: www.ernietheattorney.net.

Survey

To fill out an evaluation of the program, and to request MCLE credit, click here: CLE Course Evaluation and Request for Credit.

Thanks again to all who attended.

Feedback

— “Highly recommend Digital Workflow CLE.  Best CLE I’ve been to in years.”  Robert Peyton, New Orleans.